Petenwell Ice Walleyes

When I checked out the weather forecast a few days ago, today looked like way too nice a day to spend it at work. The tough decision was do I take the boat to Wisconsin Dells to fish walleye, or hit the ice somewhere. I was having a hard time finding a boat partner when Pat Howard shot me a text and asked if I wanted to hit Petenwell. Decision made, ice fishing it was. We arrived at the access around 8:00 and found a solid 6 to 8 inches of ice. As we headed across the lake we found a big swath of ice right down the middle that looked a bit questionable. I volunteered Pat to drive across it while I walked behind in case I needed to fish him out. The ice looked like the last to freeze and was pieces and chunks frozen into a mass. Turned out to be safe and we were soon to our destination.

We popped a bunch of holes, set a couple tipups just to use up our third lines, and settled in with a jigging spoon on one rod and a deadsticked minnow high in the water column for cruising crappies. The ice was LOUD. Probably as loud as I’ve ever heard. It was an almost constant rumble with some rather loud echoing bangs mixed in. We were marking lots of fish right away but it was all lookers and no biters for the first couple hours. Pat and I figure it had quite a bit to do with the racket the ice was making. Pat put the first few fish on the topside of the ice, but they were either whitebass or small crappie. The whitebass were sumos, probably pushing close to 17 inches. Fun fight for Pat, but not what we were after. Finally the ice started to quiet down around noon and the bite started to pick up. I managed the first keeper walleye, which came on a gold and orange jigging spoon with a minnow head.

The day continued with a far greater number of lookers than biters, but if you worked every fish over, you were able to get one to bite here and there. You were never really sure what would be coming to the hole until you could see the fish. Pat had the catfish fever going on for a good portion of the day, icing numerous whiskered critters. Here is one of the smaller ones, but the only one we took a photo of.

Our deadstick rods were looked at by many a fish, and the majority of them would just stalk the minnow without committing. Every once in a while, one would commit, like this healthy 14 inch fish that pulled my slip bobber down when I wasn’t paying attention. Thankfully, he pretty much hooked himself. Out of the many crappie we iced, this was the only big one.

The tipups didn’t produce much today. 3 run and drops, and one keeper walleye. I had a swing and a miss on a tipup, and as I was setting the tipup again, watching the minnow on the LX-5 to get it where I wanted it, a thick red mark came flying up from the bottom and grabbed the shiner, pulling the line out of my fingers and swimming off. I gave it a second and set the hook. A tipup fish that was more like a handline fish.

At the end of the day, we had six keeper walleye and one crappie to take home. We had set up right at the edge of a channel break, fishing both the top of the break and the base, with the majority of the fish coming from the base of the break. The walleye were sitting right on the bottom, and we worked far more fish than we hooked, but overall, it was a good day. Gold or Red flyer spoons seemed to produce the best today. Pat had the Petenwell grand slam, catching walleyes, white bass, crappies, and catfish. I only had the triple play, not able to put a catfish on the ice. Pat had an opportunity at a full house, tangling with a dandy pike at the end of the day that I would estimate to have been a mid to upper 30s inch fish. He had it to the hole twice, but eventually either a tooth cut his line or the bottom of the hole did.

It was a beautiful day on the ice, without another fisherman within a mile of us. Good fishing and pretty good company. Thanks for a good day Pat.